Munster v Perpignan: Johnny Watterson talks to Donncha O'Callaghan about what drives his commitment to his province and his partnership with Paul O'Connell
A creaking door opens at the back of the main stand in Thomond Park. A column of sunlight breaks in to illuminate the wall and a voice yells up the stairs. "Hurry f**kin' up Donncha, will ya?"
The metal door slams closed.
Donncha O'Callaghan stops talking and takes a moment of perverse glee from his small achievement - getting the normally mellow Mick O'Driscoll to throw the head. Standing against the wall in the shadows of the stairwell that leads to the Munster Branch offices, O'Callaghan's 6ft 6ins frame visibly shrinks. He chuckles to himself then comes clean.
"I was supposed to give Micko a lift and he's about an hour late for his rub," says the Munster and Ireland secondrow, who is also scheduled to do an RTÉ television and radio interview.
O'Callaghan is one of those team catalysts that makes things combust around him as well as being an antidote to a range of squad ailments. If Donncha is quiet, others become restless. An uncomplicated, easy manner accompanies him around the Munster rat run of the Limerick ground. He doesn't try to earn goodwill, but it seems to effortlessly follow him around. Even O'Driscoll's profane irritation is laced with affection for the man whose place on the team he dearly wants for himself.
Anecdotes are also two a penny. When in Australia with the Irish team O'Callaghan and others were invited down to the shooting of the soap series Home and Away. In the background of one of the scenes was a bowl full of fruit. After each take, the Irish lock clandestinely removed a piece of fruit. By the time the scene was over there was nothing left in the bowel except O'Callaghan's mobile phone, which he then looked out for back in Ireland when the series was shown.
O'Callaghan's schemes and super glue escapades are quite a counter-point to the team of eight, the savage Munster pack of which he is a part and which defines the side more than any other aspect. It is to the pack Munster have always looked to when in trouble. It is the pack eight who have shaped the big games and shattered reputations.
"I think Donncha is one of the most committed players I've ever come across," says O'Driscoll. "It's rugby, rugby, rugby with him. Everything is 100 per cent or he doesn't do it at all. That's what he's like. He's one of the guys you would want to go into battle with. Rugby is his life. He doesn't enjoy doing anything else. Rugby and family."
Among them all, the peerless Paul O'Connell included, the Munster jersey is treated like a relic handed down to chosen players for a limited time. In the simple transaction you rent it out and pay for it with performance. From generation to generation, from month to month and week to week, it is there to be worn with respect, then handed back. It is a simple belief system that is part of the conversion players undertake. You don't just come and play with Munster, you come and become part of Munster. Australian, Jim Williams, has still not broken free.
On Tuesday last captain Anthony Foley, who was left out of the recent Six Nations Championship, was asked whether the match against Perpignan was an incentive to prove certain people wrong. The seasoned backrow barely raised an eye from the table when he answered. "No, it's all about the team," he said. "I'm afraid, it's all about Munster."
O'Callaghan is a compliant disciple and has been since his first Heineken European Cup campaign as a 20-year old in the 1999-2000 season. Even before that when his older brother Ultan played number eight for Munster, the callow Donncha was willingly absorbing it all.
"For years and even since I was a young fella a Munster pack has always been well respected and you'd like to think they (other teams) would also have that respect for us," he says more as a statement of duty than a declaration of self-importance. "When you get your jersey you know you have it for that game only. That's always been the Munster attitude. You always go out and try to represent them for those 80 minutes to the best of your ability. That will be the case again on Saturday. You will want to hand it back with the same respect as when you were given it.
"We've an awful lot of competition in our squad, good players throughout and if you're not performing you know there is a fella that will step up and step in. It's just a respect for the people that have worn it before you and the supporters that travel around the place putting so much money into us. You have to go out and give it your all because you know you won't be doing it for an awful long time. But that pressure has been a good thing. It focuses you a bit more. I think that in your head you think you really have to go out and perform and play as well as you can and that's always been the case. You are entrusted with the jersey for 80 minutes."
O'Callaghan's partner in crime around the pitch has been his Ireland colleague and secondrow friend O'Connell. While O'Callaghan has played in a career 27 European Cup matches, O'Connell is close behind with 25. The shoulder injury earlier this year would have pushed O'Connell's total higher but the point is their careers have taken a parallel path. They were born in the same year, 1979, O'Callaghan several month before; they have played together since their Ireland under-21 days and they are both regulars in Eddie O'Sullivan's Irish squad. If anything the younger O'Connell is the senior partner, in O'Sullivan's eyes at least. O'Callaghan not only, for now, accepts that natural hierarchy but takes pride from that fact he is soldiering along side a secondrow figure of global stature, one for whom he has deep respect.
"An awful lot of people ask about the relationship," says O'Callaghan. " It's very hard to put your finger on what it is but some things click sometimes and we've been lucky enough to kinda click on the team when it's playing well. That's not to say the team couldn't have clicked when Trevor (Hogan) or Micko (O'Driscoll) are playing. It's just the way it went for myself and Paulie. None of us are big-headed about it or look down in any way. We know we have to constantly perform.
"You have to look from where myself and Paulie are coming from. It's kinda working class. That's the way we'd see each other. We'd go out each Saturday and we'd try to better each other. That's what makes it so special. If Paulie makes a carry I'll want to make a big hit or something and outdo him.
"Friends? Yeah it is important. You've a few special days together you'll always remember and there are games people wouldn't even pass comment on. There's under-20s matches when we'd to slog it out together, when it was tough and then you've the great days, the Tests when the two of you are lining out in a four and five jersey and knowing how much it means to the other fella.
"I've an awful lot of respect for Paulie and every time I play with him I want to be able to come off the pitch and the two of us to be able to look each other in the eye and know that we didn't let each other down."
O'Callaghan has long finished his Munster apprenticeship. The idea he has still much to learn is more false than true. No longer on a steep learning curve, he has made the secondrow position fit him snugly and now it is a process of improvement through careful seasoning rather than in quantum leaps and bounds. As part of the Triple Crown pack, he may be third in line to Malcolm O'Kelly and O'Connell but he also knows the separation points are incalculably small and that Ireland's recent campaign should serve the Munster pack well.
"I think the positive thing was the type of rugby we were playing," he says. "To be fair to Eddie he got an awful lot of stick when it was unnecessary and he stuck with the fellas. Me, I think I've gone beyond the phase of coming out with lines like 'I've learned this or I've learned that'. I think I'm into the stage of playing consistent, good rugby. That's what I want to do now. I'm quite happy with the way I've been playing all year.
"I know there have been tough calls," he adds. "It's about making the next stop now, taking your chance when it comes."
Postscript. Munster PRO Pat Geraghty has O'Callaghan in an armlock. "RTÉ are looking for you," he says, marching the secondrow down towards the car park. O'Driscoll, past caring, has some more good-natured profanities waiting. A radio man, Mick Corcoran, strides towards the group with a microphone. It's all go. But no, not yet. O'Driscoll's rub must wait.
